redfemaleknightfandomcom-20200214-history
Learning Japanese
The Basic Knowledge * Japanese verbs take two basic tenses, past and non-past. There is no future tense of the verb, so future actions either rely on conversational context or can be specified with time-related words. * Japanese has five vowels, of which four are present in English as the tense 'a', 'i', 'o', and 'e'. The fifth vowel is an unrounded 'u' which forms at the same place in the mouth as English 'u', except that the lips form a flatter shape. Furthermore, that unrounded 'u' is subject to devoicing. * Japanese has a simpler syllable structure compared to English. * There are no plurals in Japanese - if someone was talking about "kimono", there would be no way of knowing if it was one garment, two garments, ten, or ten thousand, or even All of Them. The closest they have is the term "-tachi", which can be added both to regular nouns and proper nouns, and means "and all the rest" (when used for proper nouns this is often translated as e.g. "John and his friends" or "John and his party"). There is also no way to indicate a group of X's in particular; "kimono-tachi" in Japanese could mean multiple kimonos or it could mean a kimono and a bunch of other clothing sitting next to it. * If it is important to distinguish between singular and plural, it is common to simply add the number, i.e. "one kimono" or "ten kimono" to specify what you want. Unfortunately, this brings up a whole new complication since Japanese people were not content with just one set of numbers. Instead, each category of objects has its own "counter" word or classifier (like group, flock, fleet, etc. but for everything) that must be used with the actual number, and you have to learn every one. * In Japanese, the pitch of homophone pronunciation can alter the meaning of the word very dramatically; there are comparatively few words in English where this is true; for example, "REcord (as in a high score, or a disc that plays music}" and "reCORD (as in what you do to get your music on a REcord)". * Japanese has no native "v" sound. They can pronounce "v" (or something like it) but since "v" a foreign sound (used exclusively in loan-words) and "b" isn't it's easier to say the far more common "b" instead. * The fact that "L" and "R" are the same consonant in Japanese (or, more accurately, that Japanese lacks both but has a sound that sounds to English speakers somewhere in the middle, with a bit of "d" thrown in there for good measure) is now the stuff of legend, of course. However, the consonant in question is actually not that far off from the Spanish/Italian "r". This sound is called a flap, and is much more prevalent in world languages, whereas the English 'r' is an alveolar approximate and much rarer. The Japanese 'r' is already present in the phonetic inventory of (American) English, but it's usually written as "d" or "dd". When you say the word "pudding" at normal conversational speed, without enunciating carefully, the middle consonant is the same as the Japanese 'r' (indeed, the word "pudding" is written "purin" in Japanese). * While English verbs tend to have very specific conjugation to describe time, Japanese instead tends towards very specific verb conjugation to express social standing, emotion, and opinion. The different levels of politeness associated with verbs and forms of verbs also determine whether the implied subject is the first person, second person or third person. How to Speak in Japanese Nouns Pronouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs Conjunctions Suffixes & Particles Greetings Honorifics and Addresses Filled-up Sentences Filled-up Questions How to Count in Japanese Numbers Classifiers Trivia * Japanese people describe things like emotions and preferences differently than in other languages. In Japan, it is widely believed that you don't have direct knowledge of what other people are really thinking (and it's very presumptuous to assume otherwise), and so it is uncommon to describe other people's thoughts directly, such as "He likes ice cream" or "She's angry". Instead, it's far more common to see things like "I heard that he likes ice cream" or "It seems like/It appears to be the case that she is angry" or "She is showing signs of wanting to go to the park." Related to this, it is important to distinguish between information you know firsthand and information you've heard from another source. * For the most part, if you can pronounce Italian or Spanish properly, you'll have a really easy time pronouncing Japanese. They have most of the same sounds, especially Italian. * Trailing off at the end of a sentence and not saying something when the listener should understand it, or aposiopesis, is extremely common in (spoken) Japanese. Notes